Written by Eric Yee
Friday, 29 June 2012 10:18
Activision has some pretty high standards when it comes to what they deem a success. Despite being the highest selling game when it debuted in April and a warm critical reception, publisher Activision has said that Prototype 2 "did not find a broad commercial audience."
The result? Activision has decided to layoff most of the staff at Radical Entertainment, the developer of Prototype 2. Radical Entertainment has been in the video game business since 1992 and will no longer make their own games, but will support other Activision developers. Radical Entertainment's audio director Rob Bridgett took to twitter with a simple message of "RIP Radical Entertainment 1991-2012."
When asked for a comment on the situation Activision provided GameSpot with the following statement:
"Although we made a substantial investment in the Prototype IP, it did not find a broad commercial audience. Radical is a very talented team of developers, however, we have explored various options for the studio, including a potential sale of the business, and have made a difficult conclusion through the consultation process that the only remaining option is a significant reduction in staff. As such, some employees will remain working for Radical Entertainment supporting other existing Activision Publishing projects, but the studio will cease development of its own games going forward."
Radical Entertainment has spoken out regarding the realignment of their studio by posting a message to fans on their Facebook page.
"This morning Radical Entertainment went through a significant reduction in staff," said the company last night. "We're very proud of what we achieved with the PROTOTYPE franchise, but unfortunately, the Blacklight virus didn't spread as far as it could. For PC gamers, rest assured that the PC version of PROTOTYPE 2 is still going to launch on July 24th as planned.
"And a special 'thanks' to the PROTOTYPE Army and all our extremely loyal and passionate fans for supporting Radical Entertainment. We couldn't have come this far without you."
This morning another post was published to their Facebook page after an "outpouring" of fan support.
"Thanks again to everyone for the outpouring of support. Just a reminder that the PC version of PROTOTYPE 2 is indeed, still coming on July 24th as planned, but please understand that updates/posts to Facebook over the next few days may be a bit light as we gain our bearing after today."
It is pretty crazy that a commerically successful game like Prototype 2 could be deemed unsuccessul in the eyes of Activision. Do they expect all of their titles to perform as well as Call of Duty?
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